


81. dorian gray reincarnated

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [168]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 17:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8855092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Sarah has never been hurt in her life. Not permanently; it doesn’t last. Her bones don’t break, her skin won’t bleed – she falls out a window once when she’s twelve and lands fine. No broken bones.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: blood, gore, body horror]

Sarah has never been hurt in her life. Not permanently; it doesn’t last. Her bones won’t break, her skin won’t bleed – she falls out a window once when she’s twelve and lands fine. No broken bones.

The pain comes for her when she’s eighteen.

She wakes up in bed and it’s crouching over her, all jutting-out bones and slow dribbles of coagulating blood from places Sarah doesn’t even know she’s bled from. She recognizes the pain instantly – would have even if it didn’t have her face. There’s something in the way it moves, how it crouches, the angles of its elbow bones sticking out from its arms like wings.

WE NEED TO TALK, says the pain.

“It’s not my fault,” Sarah says. “I didn’t ask for this shit.”

YOU HAVE TO STOP, says the pain. YOU HAVE TO STAY STILL. I AM RUNNING OUT OF BONES TO BREAK. It speaks slow, halting, its mouth full of Sarah’s old baby teeth, its tongue burned up and chewed up and pulped between its cracked-open lips. Sarah wants to touch it, to push her bleach-stained iron-burned hair out of its face. She doesn’t. Seems like it would ruin something.

“I’m not just gonna lie here, am I?” she spits, teenage defiance and teenage bravado. “You were made for this, I’m not gonna—”

I WASN’T MADE FOR THIS, says her pain. It stops, shudders, looks away from Sarah. Underneath all the damage it is very small. Her age, but – small. I DON’T KNOW. WHAT I WAS MADE FOR. BUT THIS? NO. THIS WAS AN ACCIDENT. I HATE IT. I DON’T WANT IT ANYMORE. _YOU_ TAKE IT, IT’S YOURS.

“No.”

The pain stares her down. It leans in very close. It smells like old meat and all the sugar that rotted cavities in Sarah’s teeth. NO? it says.

“What are you gonna do?” Sarah says. “Hit me?”

That makes it reel back, into a crouch that doesn’t quite work: its right leg crumples under it, so it’s partially kneeling there on the bed. Blood oozes from it in bursts but doesn’t stain anything. It just keeps going, and going, and never is quite gone.

DO YOU THINK I COULD? it says, and Sarah goes very still. She doesn’t want to find out.

The pain reaches out a hand and Sarah leans back from that hand and Sarah doesn’t _want_ that hand, peeled-back fingernails and papercuts she doesn’t want it near her at all and it touches her face and it’s

gentle. Just the slightest brush of fingertips with no fingerprints. There’s something Icarian in the burns from the iron that dapple the tips of its fingers. That probably makes Sarah the sun, not that she asked for it.

OH, says the pain. YOU’RE SOFT.

“Stop,” Sarah says. It hums at her and presses its fingertips harder against the skin of her face, so hard she can feel them pushing at her teeth. “ _Stop_ ,” she says again, but she can’t quite bring herself to touch its skin and _make_ it.

YOU COULD HAVE BEEN ME, says the pain. I COULD HAVE BEEN YOU. I COULD HAVE BEEN THAT SOFT, FOR ALWAYS. It sucks in a hissing breath between its broken teeth. I CAN’T HATE YOU. BAD, BAD. I SHOULD. BUT. I CAN’T.

“Good,” Sarah says shakily, and the pain scoffs at her and makes its terrible way off of her legs. It crumples to the floor – “bonelessly” is not the word to use, because the descent is full of the awful noise of breaking bones. But the way it crumples. People don’t crumple like that.

I WANT, says the pain, voice quiet and aching from the floor. Sarah doesn’t look down; she doesn’t want to see the expression on its face.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

IF YOU WERE SORRY, says the pain, YOU WOULD STOP.

Sarah doesn’t answer; the pain doesn’t say anything else. When Sarah finally works up the courage to look down to the floor, it’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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